The glee people showed toward the demise of a product they don't use is actually a great argument for why Reader matters: While Twitter's a great window into the brains and reading lists of smart people the world over, news from smaller outlets or people with less pungent viewpoints has a harder time fighting to the surface.

Since so many journalists' jobs depend on how they process the information gushing toward them, the question of how one consumes information is an increasingly intimate one. But as Alex Kantrowitz writes, the execution order is a reminder that "we are still just the users, nothing more."

No matter how much work we put in to optimize our online presences, our tools and our experiences, we are still at the mercy of big companies controlling the platforms we operate on. When they don’t like what’s happening, even if we do, they can make whatever call they want. And Wednesday night, Google made theirs.

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

Andrew Beaujon reported on the media for Poynter from 2012 to 2015. He was previously arts editor at TBD.com and managing editor of Washington City Paper. He's the author of the 2006 book "Body Piercing Saved My Life," about Christian rock and evangelical Christian culture.